Shaun scrooby

Welcome to my island

Flames curl around oak logs at VUUR in Stellenbosch, a restaurant where fire, story, and soul collide.

For 17 years, Shaun worked as a safari guide, telling stories of animals and landscapes to wide-eyed travelers. But when lockdown came, he returned home, transformed an old stable on the Remhoogte Wine Estate, and by December 2023 elevated by adding the social dining concept on the dam and lit a fire that has not gone out since.

The approach to VUUR is disarming in its simplicity. An unassuming stable, sand washed walls, a roof that has known both sun and storm. Were it not for the low billows of smoke rising in the distance and the warmth that radiates as you step closer, you might mistake it for just another farm building.

Inside, however, it is another world, wooden beams, raw textures, the faint crackle of oak and wattle feeding the fire. Tables are set not with fuss or formality but with intention, clean lines, simple glassware, a pared-back elegance. It feels less like entering a restaurant and more like being welcomed into someone’s home.

Theatre by the fire

At VUUR, dining is never passive. Guests don’t just eat here, they experience it. “I think people are constantly looking more for unique experiences,” Shaun explains. “When you can not only see and smell the food as it’s cooked in front of you, but also get up close, chat with the chef while he’s cooking, or simply observe until the plate is brought over, it must be like theatre. The more you know about why the dish was made, where it comes from and how it is made, the more you relate with what you are eating. We should not only eat with our senses but with understanding. It’s then that you remember the food, because you remember the story behind it.”

And so, fire becomes the stage, Shaun the narrator, and each course another act in a play that unfolds slowly, deliberately, and with flair.

Homegrown, laid-back, and absolutly on fire

Forget stiff service or white-tablecloth etiquette. At Vuur, the vibe is as unpolished and genuine as the chef’s grin when he drops a plate at your table. It’s fun, laid-back, down- to-earth, almost like stumbling into a backyard braai where the host just happens to wield the instincts of a culinary poet. Wood, smoke, and flame are the guiding principles, but comfort, warmth, and generosity are the spirit. And then there’s the menu, short, sharp, and confident. Like a handwritten playlist of greatest hits, each dish demands its moment.

Bread, bone and beginings

The curtain rises with the bone marrow sourdough roll. A golden loaf split open to reveal the softness of the bread, glossed with black garlic butter, crowned with gooseberry jam, and anchored by roasted marrow. “Bread is the first handshake,” Shaun says. “It’s the way we welcome people in. But I wanted ours to be a little cheeky, a little unexpected.” It is at once primal and playful, the richness of marrow, the perfume of the black garlic, the sweet-tart lift of gooseberry, all pulled together by smoke. The kind of dish that makes you pause and smile, because you can feel both its confidence and its warmth.

The crackle of perfection. Then comes the line-caught yellowtail fish, and suddenly the theatre Shaun spoke of is no longer metaphor but reality. The skin is a revelation, blistered over the flames until it snaps like glass, so crisp that the sound of the fork breaking through is almost louder than the murmur of conversation. Beneath it, the flesh is tender and glistening, a study in contrasts, the crunch of char, the soft surrender of perfectly cooked fish. A touch of smoke lingers, eucalyptus and wattle weaving through like a signature. Around it, cabbage and salad are not afterthoughts but actors in their own right, charred leaves bringing bitterness, fresh greens providing lift, the whole plate a reminder that the best dishes are those that seem effortless while being anything but.

It is the kind of dish that ruins you for lesser fish forever.

A Guide Turned Storyteller

Shaun is not a classically trained chef. He is not the product of Michelin kitchens or culinary schools. He is, instead, a guide, one who now leads guests not through savannas but through flavors. It is the kind of dish that ruins you for lesser fish forever. “At first I thought being a guide and being a chef were completely different worlds,” he admits. “But actually, they’re the same. It’s about paying attention. On safari it was a bird or a track. Here, it’s a carrot or a piece of marrow. The joy is the same.”

His years in the bush gave him the art of storytelling and the patience of observation. At VUUR, those skills are transposed onto food. The dining room becomes his savanna, the fire his lion’s roar, the dishes his narrative.

More than a meal

By the end of an afternoon at VUUR, it becomes clear that this is experience will linger on in every guests memories. It is an island of sorts, not in geography, but in spirit. An island where fire is the tide, smoke the breeze, and hospitality the sand beneath your feet.

Shaun has created more than a dining room, he has created a refuge. A place where guests feel seen, fed, and woven into a story larger than themselves. Where every course is not just about taste, but about connection, to fire, to memory, to each other.

As the afternoon winds down, embers glow low against the beams and glimpses of wildebeest, springbok, and zebras grazing in the nearby pasture. Guests linger, reluctant to leave, glasses half-empty but spirits full. Shaun looks at the fire, then back at his guests. “Not every day a man can say, welcome to my island,” he says with a smile.
And in that moment, you believe him.